Pieces
by Vanui
Summary: They grew and matured, and in the process, lost everything one by one as the world fell to pieces. But it wasn't all bad. Mild episode 8 spoilers. R/W


If Ruby didn't know any better, she would have thought the dark red stain on her cloak was merely a trick of the light, an effect of the shadows created from the bright moonlight reflected off the snow. But it was a shade too dark, too wet, to be apart of her precious red cloak, and the aching numbness in her side constantly reminded her that no, no that red was not supposed to be there. That red was supposed to be back inside her skin, inside her body, not carcass, where it was warm, to keep the warmth, it was so cold, why was it so cold, her legs weren't obeying her commands–

"No!"

A voice, distressed, pierced through the veil of pain hovering over her mind and muddling her thoughts. It was so hard to think clearly, who was calling her name, such a lovely voice, familiar, angry, desperate, reprimanding, icy, fiery, demanding, anguished–

"No, no, no, Ruby, no, please don't be, don't be–" Don't be what? A flash of pain, the feeling of warmth and then, oh, she realized. Dead. Don't be dead.

"Yang would kill me if I was dead," she wheezed, and her silver eyes struggled to focus on the overwhelming white hovering overhead, tickling her cheeks and nose and bringing some feeling back from the brink of never ending numbness. Her ponytail was undone. Such beautiful tresses, fitting for a princess, royalty, someone as precious as– "Weiss, that, ow, hurts."

"S-Sorry," the pale girl sniffed, and the pressure around her wound lessened but didn't completely disappear. Weiss's warm arms held her up at an almost sitting angle, and the blood rushed back down to her wounds and forced a moan to escape through her lips, instantly putting Weiss back on edge. "What's wrong?"

She forced a smile, what she thought was a smile anyway, and croaked, "Nothing, now that you're here." The arms tightened again.

"Don't you even start. Don't you dare."

A memory, distant but not dull, surfaced and, whether from the blood loss or her bad judgment, she found herself saying, "So bossy, I mean, difficult, as you'd say," and uncontrollable laughter bubbled up her throat and spilled out until laughter turned to wheezes then coughs and copper in her mouth and, with blood trickling down her chin, suddenly it wasn't as funny anymore.

"Ruby–"

"Ah, don't worry, Weiss. Or are you so far beyond worrying already?" There was no stopping her now. "In a good way?"

"Ruby, what are you going on about?"

Anger, unbidden, swift, irrational, coursed through her body, and she growled, "You forgot? How could you forget?" But the growl was a mere harsh whisper, her breaths rapidly becoming shorter and more labored. The pain was fading, folding over itself like a blanket and bleeding into the white snow.

A cold hand settled over her cheeks, and she heard, softly, tenderly, wavering, "How could I forget? I didn't. I can't."

Shame, then fury, then fear, made her mind spin and she wasn't so sure if she should keep talking. Could keep talking. "How old were we then?" she hoarsely asked, and took a struggling breath.

"You were 15," she received. "And you never stopped being 15, you dolt." There was no malice behind her words, only pain, and… tears, sobs?

"And you?" she asked even though she already knew the answer. Anything to distract from the tears. Too weak to even lift her fingers up and brush them away though they twitched pathetically on the cold, biting snow. One droplet fell and landed cooly on her forehead, trickling down like the many times she had felt blood slide down her skin.

"17 and arrogant." Disgust laced her breaking voice, but Ruby would have none of it.

"You mean _a_mazing."

The last word could barely be heard, weak as it was, but Weiss was so close she had no choice but to hear. To her credit, Weiss gave a watery scoff and that was when everything went utterly dark, cut off abruptly like when Yang flicked the light switch and bathed the room in darkness to try and scare the living daylights out of her.

She could see it now, again, Yang laughing hysterically while Blake rolled her eyes, a fond smirk twitching on her lips, Weiss standing regally to the side and rubbing her forehead dramatically, but Ruby could see the smile hiding behind her forearm. Weiss was always beautiful, but she was the best when she smiled.

How long ago was that, when they were still a team? Things were alright, then. Sure, there was always a vague threat looming on the horizon, something they all felt but failed to acknowledge, refused to admit, and only when it was right in their faces, tearing them apart limb from limb, did they realize how late it was. But things were good before then. Blake and Yang got along swimmingly and, while she and Weiss had her differences every now and then, Ruby and her partner got along just as well, if not better. She had the time of her life leading team RWBY. She–

"You're awake."

And Ruby only blinked, took one look at the shadows beneath Weiss's blue eyes, the haggard appearance of her usually flawless composure, the dried blood dyeing her white outfit crimson, blood she'd later complain could never be removed, the paler-than-usual quality of her soft skin, and told her, "You should have been leader."

Weiss wasn't surprised this time, not like however long ago it was when they were in the snow. An hour, a day, a week, Ruby had no idea, only that they were in the Schnee cabin that the family used to use during their vacations before everything went to hell. "If I were leader, we wouldn't even be here right now," she stated and reached over to the bin on the bedside table. Ruby heard the swish of water then watched as Weiss's slender fingers wrung a plain towel out, squeezing the moisture out with swift and direct force.

The cold towel found its way onto her burning forehead, and Ruby swore she heard a sizzle when it touched her skin and set off several realizations that, oh, she was on fire and sweating enough to fill a pond, oh, her hip blazed with white-hot, mind-shattering pain, oh, how the rest of her body ached with every pulse of her beating heart. Amongst the tornado of hurt, she had enough presence of mind to croak, "If you were leader, maybe we all would've been here."

Weiss didn't say anything after that, only gave Ruby a scathing look, and that was all Ruby needed to shut up as well. She fell asleep not long after, different from fainting, white hair burned into her retinas and screams of the past invading her fitful rest.

* * *

The ceiling only entertained her for a few minutes before the boredom set in. So she shifted in the bed, rustled the sheets, and let the only other occupant of the cabin know she was awake. "How have you been feeding me painkillers?" she asked, and noted with satisfaction that the force behind her voice was slowly returning.

Weiss blinked and raised a delicate eyebrow, walking over to the bed, eyes of ice drilling holes into her skull. "I'm surprised you even know I've been giving you any."

"I wouldn't have been able to sleep with the pain otherwise." Indeed, the past couple of days would have been unbearable if she hadn't had any. Delirious with extreme pain and fever instead of mildly confused and sick.

Sighing softly, the white-haired girl, clean and dressed in the only spare battle-worthy clothes she could find (which was her old uniform during her time at Beacon), sat down on the bed and sank into the cushioning, hand reaching out to brush back the clumped, sweaty bangs on Ruby's forehead. "Your soup," Weiss answered, grimacing. "Or whatever you want to call that mess."

"Poisoning my food, huh?" The sight of the old uniform, tight now around the chest area, too short up her creamy thighs, sent her thoughts down a path that she wasn't opposed to following. Losing almost everything she had, near death not long after, made her reconsider the reasons why she had kept her distance from the ex-heiress to the Schnee legacy, and she knew that Weiss didn't have much left either. Nothing to lose, anymore. "Weiss."

The hand retreated, then, "Yes?"

"How bad is it?" There it was, out before she could think anymore, dread anymore.

A thick swallow, then, "I don't know."

"I think you do," Ruby whispered, and she closed her eyes and waited.

Waited.

Silence.

"There's going to be scarring," she hesitantly started.

Ruby closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Let it out slowly, another breath not quite so deep and tried to swallow down her dry throat. "Scars are the least of my worries." Looking pointedly at Weiss's left eye, she told her, "Scars only prove that I lived to see another day."

At this, Weiss could only look away and break the piercing stare Ruby fixed on her own very visible scar, pulling back and leaving the bed when the bedridden girl tried to reach up to touch the marred skin. It was at this moment that, in a split-second decision, Ruby tried to sit up for the first time in a week and move for the floor, thoughts filled only with the purpose of touching Weiss, holding Weiss, not realizing how utterly numb her right leg felt, how nothing below her right hip seemed to feel much of anything at all, and when her dead leg swung over the side of the bed and touched the floor and felt nothing at all, she could only widen her eyes in shock as she tumbled down and smashed her elbows on the wood boards in an effort to save at least her head from harm.

Her silver eyes shook when they looked up.

They said no more. Her question had been answered.

She still wanted to fight, even after the truth had been given and received and taken with the pill of bitter reality. Weiss protested very vocally at first, then when she saw that she could do nothing to deter Ruby of her determination, gave in and decided to help her instead. Ruby began her recovery by requesting every metallic part Weiss could lay her hands on, and she did, digging through the closets of the cabin and basement storage. When it wasn't enough, she risked herself with nightly escapades back into whatever civilization she could find, taking whatever she could, ignoring the little voice in her head that constantly went, "Look at the little Schnee heiress now, reduced to nothing but a petty thief."

But it was all for Ruby, and she meant more than anything else in the world. Even her stubborn pride. Times had changed, and there was no time for teenage stupidity.

Ruby, of course, didn't like that she went out by herself, especially at night, but she needed those parts and she knew that Weiss was a big girl now. That, and Ruby wasn't even half the warrior Weiss was anymore. There was nothing she could do. At the moment, anyway. So she contented herself with the thought that she'd be more able to protect her partner if Weiss came back with those parts, and there was nothing to do but squeeze her eyes shut and bite her lips at night and try to rest while Weiss roamed.

Eventually, she collected enough junk for Ruby to work with, and Ruby did what she was best at doing: making weapons. But she couldn't possibly make a new one with what little materials she had, and with nothing else left, she turned to Crescent Rose with a fond hand and ran a finger over the chipped red paint and exposed silver muscle. "I'm sorry," she apologized, then began to unscrew the plating.

Away went the scythe. Melee was useless now. It was okay, though; she'd always been a bigger fan of guns anyway, or so she convinced herself.

Weiss had been great enough to find a cane for Ruby on one of her escapades and, despite what she said, it was clearly something she had spent her dwindling funds on. Not some cheap flimsy wood or metal she could have stolen, no, she had been brave enough to enter a shop and have it custom made. Yang would have been impressed. Blake, too, and then Yang would have made a comment along the lines of, "So now you get to join the creepy-old-man-with-a-cane club!"

She leaned heavily on the black metal and swallowed away the longing and nostalgia.

"Ruby, are you sure you want to do this?"

They were on a cliff, looking over what used to be Beacon Academy. It was twisted now, darker, emanating an aura of impenetrable death and despair. Her silver eyes took in every detail, anything to help her later, memorizing the changed structures to the best of her abilities, and shifted the sniper rifle that hung from a strap on her back. "Someone needs to see this through, Weiss."

"But it doesn't have to be us. We still have time to leave this all behind, and go somewhere they can never find us."

Ruby smiled.

"Just for tonight, we can run away," she offered with finality. Run away from responsibility, and stop running from her feelings, their feelings. "But only tonight."

Weiss could only follow her back to camp and obey.

Later, entangled in the silk sheets they'd taken from the cabin, staring up at the glittering stars across the night sky, both of them finished panting and moaning and screaming and feeling for the first time in a long time, both of them basking in whatever brief happiness they could find in the moment, both of them trying to forget everything but each other, Weiss spoke her last word of protest.

"We've already lost so much." And you've lost everything, but neither of them voiced that particular truth. "We don't have to lose any more."

But there was one more thing she still had, one more thing she could have lost and she whispered it out of her chest and into Weiss's trembling form, and once the tears had subsided, she unclasped her red riding hood and wrapped it around white shoulders.

"No–"

But Ruby would have none of it. To keep you safe, you're the one dashing through the fray, she whispered, and that was that.

When daylight fell the next evening and the school fell as well, liberated, freed, Weiss didn't cry. Tears of anguish, tears of happiness, tears of overwhelming emotion, streamed down nearly everyone's faces, everyone who had not seen daylight for months, some even years, and they tried to rejoice in what they had now. Freedom. Peace. But so much had been paid in exchange, and it would be a long time before the land was fully healed.

The responsibility fell to the only remaining alumni of Beacon Academy, and Weiss almost laughed at the thought that all that training for leading a company would be useful after all. Except running a company wasn't the same as fixing a country and rebuilding a school, and nothing could have prepared her for every aspect that came with the responsibility.

The first of which was to dig her friends' graves.

She made the entire ceremony private, to keep out the hordes of people who wished to pay respects to the heroes who contributed to the struggle, and that meant that the only people in that peaceful graveyard was herself and the bodies of everyone else. Her perfect hands finally tasted blood that day, as the shovel bit into her delicate skin, and she dug the graves of everyone she was able to find amidst the carnage. Juane, Pyrrah, Lie Ren, and Nora had all died so early on that she had no idea where to begin looking for them, if there was even anything to look for anyway, and Blake's body was gone from where they had hidden it, taken almost definitely by that red-haired man they'd fought a couple times, but Yang's had been zealously hidden in the mountains, so hers was there at least.

Hers, and Ruby's.

It was only when she touched that soft red hair for the last time that the tears finally came, and she wailed and sobbed and cried and choked on her tears until her head pounded and her mouth was dry and she tasted salt and felt nothing but her swollen cheeks.

She had lost almost everything. But only almost. And she'd fought tooth and nail until the very end. Weiss hadn't been there when it happened, because she was at the front of the battlefield and Ruby was hidden somewhere she could pick soldiers off one by one, but she was sure that Ruby had taken every single one of those bastards to the grave with her when her light finally burned out.

Somewhere along the way, she fainted.

When she woke up after fainting, it was nighttime, and the sky glowed. The moons shined brighter than they had ever before, and the stars sparkled joyfully. Celebrations were surely well along their way, Weiss figured, and the night sky had decided to join them.

But before she could join them, she had one last thing to do. She turned to the line of stones she'd left on the cliff they'd defeated those gigantic Grimms at, their very first kills as a team, the first time she and Ruby had successfully put their heads together and relied on one another, and tried to pay her respects. Words left her lips and failed in flight, and she tried several more times to say something, anything meaningful, before giving up with the speech. The only thing she could do now was sing, and she sang the song that was hers and Ruby's and Yang's and Blake's and then the song that was her's and Ruby's and then…

"_I've loved you for a long time now. My heart, it's yours, and everything else I own belongs to you, too."_

It was time to find a safe place to store away her friends' legacy, the very weapons that carried them, and herself, to victory.

She clutched the red cloak closer to herself and wondered when she would join them.

* * *

A/N: I don't know what I'm doing and I need to write my Y/K story but ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

This week's episode was too good and I accidentally KILLED EVERYONE OFF IN RESPONSE HAHAHA

Something's wrong with me. But I hope anyone who made it all the way down here to the end enjoyed it.

Thanks to Nishizono for looking this over. You da best.


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